Looking for a TV Tropes entry: stopping questions too soon

Cafe Society
1

TV Tropes simply must have a page on this, but I didn’t find it.

This trope pulls me out of the story every time it happens. Someone, maybe an investigator or journalist or beat cop or suspicious partner, is trying to piece together What Is Going On. They find someone who knows something (the gardener, the former landlord, the cab driver…) and they ask questions until they get just the first smidgen of a new lead. Then they cheerfully say “Thanks!” and leave, implying that they’ve gotten everything this person has to offer.

No! I can think of at least ten follow-up questions you should be asking! Why did you go to all this trouble to find this witness just to get one microgram of new information!?

Think “every ten minutes in a Law & Order episode”. In L&O it’s just part of the shtick: you know what you’re getting. But in more, err…, well-written shows, it bugs me when some otherwise industrious and intelligent Seeker of Truth is put so far out of character this way.

Basic framework of this trope –

SEEKER OF TRUTH: I’m looking for Johnny.
JOHNNY’S FORMER LANDLORD: Haven’t seen him in months. He moved out back in June.
SOT: Ah, rats. Do you have a forwarding address?
JFL: Nope. He just up-n-left.
SOT: Is there anyone around here that might know something? Maybe a girlfriend or something?
JFL: Well, you might ask Trixy. I hear she works at a bar up in Shelbyville on weekends.
SOT: Well, hey, thanks for your time. Much obliged. knods and walks off

  • end scene -

No! Which bar? Where in Shelbyville? Who did you hear this from? Can you help me find that person, too, since they seem closer to Trixy than you? What does Trixy looks like, roughly at least? What kind of car did Johnny drive when he lived here? Did other people come visit him ever? Where did he live before here? With family?

Silly investigator! You were being so brilliant two scenes ago.

2

A quote from Phantom Menace:

Some weird alien lady, “They’re in the ventilation shaft!”

Everyone just accepts it. They should be saying, “Wait…how do you know that?”

3

Seeing an entirely-accurate, every-necessary-question-asked police investigation would be pretty boring. Hollywood just hits the high points and moves on. It’s the nature of the beast.

4

Sure, a lot of TV drama writing is just about moving the plot along, character consistency be damned, especially if a whole story arc has to happen in 43 minutes. But some shows and writers manage to keep it honest. For instance, careful writing and editing can leave you with an understanding that a thorough investigation must have occurred even if you aren’t shown the whole thing. This is done all the time with sex scenes where, say, a clear impression is given that two lovers have had quite the night, yet we only see the first 6 seconds of it.

(My mini-rant here grew out of my having watched a very well written series and then switched back to a reasonably well-written series, at which point it appeared clunkier to me than it had before. Although this particular trope has always bugged me anyway. I’m curious to find the TV Tropes entry, though. In any case, I’ll get used to clunkiness again soon, I imagine.)